We're in Era of "Peak Renewables," To Be Followed By An Age of Fossil Fuels That Has Just Begun

Scott Grannis points to this excellent Salon article "Everything You've Heard About Fossil Fuels May Be Wrong" about natural gas and fracking, here are some excerpts:

"According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming. What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

The U.S., Canada and Mexico, it turns out, are sitting on oceans of recoverable natural gas. Shale gas is combined with recoverable oil in the Bakken "play" along the U.S.-Canadian border and the Eagle Ford play in Texas. The shale gas reserves of China turn out to be enormous, too. Other countries with now-accessible natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. government, include Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, France, Poland and India.

Because shale gas reserves are so widespread, the potential for blackmail by Middle Eastern producers and Russia will diminish over time. Unless opponents of fracking shut down gas production in Europe, a European Union with its own natural gas reserves will be far less subject to blackmail by Russia. The U.S. may become a major exporter of natural gas to China -- at least until China borrows the technology to extract its own vast gas reserves. 

Two arguments for switching to renewable energy -- the depletion of fossil fuels and national security -- are no longer plausible.

The arguments for converting the U.S. economy to wind, solar and biomass energy have collapsed. The date of depletion of fossil fuels has been pushed back into the future by centuries -- or millennia. The abundance and geographic diversity of fossil fuels made possible by technology in time will reduce the dependence of the U.S. on particular foreign energy exporters, eliminating the national security argument for renewable energy.

Conclusion: Eventually civilization may well run out of natural gas and other fossil fuels that are recoverable at a reasonable cost, and may be forced to switch permanently to other sources of energy. These are more likely to be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion than solar or wind power, which will be as weak, diffuse and intermittent a thousand years from now as they are today. But that is a problem for the inhabitants of the world of 2500 or 3000 A.D.

In the meantime, it appears that the prophets of an age of renewable energy following Peak Oil got things backwards. We may be living in the era of Peak Renewables, which will be followed by a very long Age of Fossil Fuels that has only just begun."

MP: The chart above shows that natural gas has become so abundant in the U.S. because of technological advances in drilling that prices for commercial users today (adjusted for inflation) are lower than at any time since November of 2002. 

To understand how horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing work and have revolutionized natural gas production, check out this video (thanks to Pete Friedlander).